


Captain West's Motley Crew

by fezwearingjellybananas



Series: Barry Allen Week 2019 [5]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, M/M, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21605032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fezwearingjellybananas/pseuds/fezwearingjellybananas
Summary: Cadet Edward Thawne, nephew of Admiral Eobard Thawne, had been brought up believing pirates were always the bad guys. But he knew Barry, at least he thought he did, and some things weren't adding up
Relationships: Barry Allen/Eddie Thawne
Series: Barry Allen Week 2019 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1552891
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	Captain West's Motley Crew

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Barry Allen Week Day 6: Pirate

Eddie glared up at the pirate. None of them had taken their helmets off yet, their faces were still hidden, but he’d been shoved to his knees at this one’s feet, they had to be important.

“You won’t get away with this,” Eddie spat.

“Why not?”

“You’re pirates. Scum of the galaxy.”

“Go find the captain, Mister Ramon,” the pirate said. He took of his helmet and Eddie stared. He had a burn scar covering half his face, an eyepatch over one eye, but Eddie would know him anywhere.

“By the stars,” he whispered. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m not,” Barry said. He didn’t stop Eddie standing, or respond to Eddie brushing a hand over his uninjured cheek. That almost hurt more.

“What did they do to you?”

“Cadet Thawne.” A woman walked in. “I’m Captain West, this is Mister Ramon, and I see you’ve met Mister Allen.”

“Barry?” Eddie asked. Barry just stepped away from him and addressed the captain.

“The rest of the crew agreed to the terms?”

“Their captain spoke,” Captain West shrugged. “The terms, Cadet Thawne, are that you’ll be staying here with us a little while longer, and in exchange, we let the rest of the crew go free.”

“Deal,” Eddie said. “What do you want with me?”

“You’re Admiral Thawne’s nephew, correct?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure we can find some use for you. Mister Ramon, please escort our guest to the brig and prepare for launch.”

* * *

The brig was in the base of the ship, next to the engine room, standard for all naval vessels. Putting it near the coolant was presumably supposed to be an added punishment, because it was freezing.

At least there was a seat he could strap himself into for launch, and a cocoon for sleeping.

The engine rumbled so loud Eddie could barely hear himself think.

He had no idea what Captain West wanted from him, but it couldn’t be good. Barry wouldn’t let them-

Barry had barely acknowledged Eddie; he couldn’t rely on Barry.

He had no idea what to do.

* * *

Ramon was the one who opened the door.

“Cap’n’s waiting in her office,” he said with a smile.

“What?”

“You know the way, right?”

Eddie nodded and pushed himself down the corridor after Ramon. The corridors seemed empty aside from the two of them. West had a larger crew, he’d seen before, but none of them were in sight.

Ramon opened the door to the captain’s office. West was sitting in a chair, belted in. She gestured at the other seat and Eddie sat. He pulled the belt across his lap.

“Where’s Barry?” he asked.

“Elsewhere,” West said. She pressed a button. “Ms Park, would you hail Admiral Thawne and patch him through to my office?”

“Right away, Cap,” a woman’s voice said.

“This is the _Star_ ,” Uncle Eobard’s voice cackled over the radio a few moments later. “Admiral Thawne speaking.”

“Eobard,” West said.

“Iris,” Uncle Eobard said. “To what do I owe this displeasure?”

“I have a trade proposition for you,” West said.

“I already know what you want. I sincerely doubt you’d willingly give me what I want.”

“Oh, that is very much off the table. No, I have someone else that might be of interest to you.” She nudged Eddie with her foot. “Speak up, Cadet.”

“Admiral Thawne, it’s Cadet Edward Thawne,” he said, eyes downcast. Uncle Eobard was going to be so disappointed; Eddie should have known this is why she wanted him. “The _Venture_ was attacked, I was taken hostage, I believe the rest of the crew was released unharmed.”

“I see,” Uncle Eobard said. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Captain. But I suppose desperate people will do desperate things.”

“We’ll send you your nephew once we have him back,” West said.

“Now, now, slow down. I didn’t say I agreed to this deal.”

“We have your nephew.”

“I do have several of them,” Uncle Eobard said. “And I’m sure Edward will be quite safe with you.”

“If he’s that useless, what’s to stop us throwing him out the airlock?”

“Iris. You and I both know neither your morals nor Barry would let you. And an admiral cannot be seen bartering with pirates. Until we next cross paths, Captain.” The radio cut out.

“What a dick,” Ramon said.

“Thank you, Mister Ramon,” West said. “Will you be staying?”

“I’m going to go fix my hand, one of them caught some of the wiring earlier.” Ramon flexed his little finger and none of the others moved. “It’s like they have no respect for mechanical engineering.”

“Let whoever’s in the kitchen know we’re both in here, will you?”

“Will do, Cap.” Ramon flicked two fingers from his forehead in a mock salute and left. West turned to Eddie.

“Why did your uncle turn us down?”

“Because he can’t negotiate with pirates,” Eddie said. “You must have known this wouldn’t work.”

“It did seem like the most likely response, yes. You have an older brother.”

“Going to try and ransom me to him next?”

“I’m simply trying to make conversation. You have an older brother. Father’s a politician. Powerful people, the Thawnes.”

“I joined on my own merit.”

“You joined because something was expected of you, and this one involved space travel.”

The door opened again and a woman with white hair walked in. She put two covered bowls on the table.

“Thank you, Doctor Snow,” West said. “I thought it was-”

“It was,” Snow said. “I just carried it up.” She nodded and left again.

West lifted the lid off her bowl and scooped out something brown. Eddie frowned.

“It isn’t poisoned if that’s what you’re concerned about, Cadet,” West said. “It’s just casserole. What do you know about General Eiling and the Grodd Project?”

“Nothing,” Eddie said. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“You know Mister Allen.”

“Barry…” Eddie trailed off. “Barry worked with my uncle. I don’t know what on, it was classified. We, we were close. And then he died. I thought he died.”

“You were close.”

“Does it matter? It was in the past.”

“Does it matter to you?”

“What’s this about?”

“I’m forming an opinion of you. So far I’m not sure.”

Eddie frowned and tried a bit of casserole.

“This is Barry’s recipe,” he said.

“His grandmother’s,” West said. “He enjoys cooking when he’s stressed. He says it-”

“Helps him think, I know.”

* * *

West had left him blankets when she’d escorted him back to the brig. Eddie had tried not to use them, but even the cocoon was too cold alone. He stayed inside all the next day, until a woman opened the door.

“Cadet Thawne,” she said. “Cap’s waiting up in her office.”

Eddie followed her. At least the rest of the ship was a little warmer.

“Thank you, Ms Park,” West said. Once again, Eddie found himself sitting opposite her, this time with two bowls already at the table.

“Good luck,” Ms Park said. She left again.

“Good luck with what?” Eddie asked.

“You look cold,” West said. “I’ve been informed the brig is too cold for long term, so you’ll be moved to another room as soon as we find one that locks from the outside. Unless you want to join my crew.”

“I’m not joining a crew of pirates.”

“Suit yourself. You haven’t heard the rest of my offer yet.”

“I don’t need to. I’m not joining a crew of pirates.”

“We passed the Oort Cloud earlier. Even if you take a lifeship, you wouldn’t be able to pass back through. We should reach the Centurai System in two months. You can stay locked in a room, or you can make yourself useful.”

“I’m not helping pirates.”

“Barry said you’d say that.”

“You’re not using him against me.”

“I don’t intend to. I’d eat if I were you, Cadet. You’re going to need your strength.”

* * *

West kept having different people bring Eddie to her office for dinner. She’d talk about nothing and offer him a position in her crew. Even after they’d moved him to another bunk which was a lot warmer than the brig, she kept having him brought to her office at dinner to talk.

He hadn’t seen Barry again. Not yet. Perhaps he would if he accepted her offer. He definitely would; Barry was one of the crew. He’d faked his death and left Eddie to become a pirate.

Ramon had offered Eddie new clothes. When he’d turned down the “pirate rags” Ramon had shown up again with two naval uniforms. Out of date, and one was from the science branch (undoubtedly Barry’s), but still they were naval uniforms. 

Maybe helping out for a few weeks wouldn’t be a bad thing. It would give him something to do. Give him a chance to talk to Barry, to get some answers. If Barry was one of the crew, they must be important to him, and Barry wouldn’t trust just anyone.

Then again, the Barry Eddie had known wouldn’t have faked his death and run away to be a pirate, so maybe it was all a lie.

Eddie rubbed the ring hidden under his shirt between his fingers. It couldn’t have been.

Uncle Eobard had said neither Captain West’s morals nor Barry would let her throw him out the airlock. He knew Barry was alive.

“I need to talk to Barry,” he said next time he was in West’s office. “Please.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” West said. “But if he says no, I won’t push him. Barry is my first mate. My friend. I like you, but he’s my priority in this situation.”

“He’s your first mate. He’s the first mate of a crew of pirates.”

“From that tone I take it you still haven’t changed your mind.”

“What did you do to him? The Barry I knew, the Barry I loved, he couldn’t have done this.”

“You’re right, he’s a good man,” West said. “Loyal. Cares about people. Sometimes rash. Can be angry. But he always choose to do the right thing.”

“If you’re the good guys, why did you attack our ship?”

“We just needed a ship. Your old captain was the one who offered us you. He didn’t tell you that.”

“You’re lying. Captain Nimbus is a naval officer-”

“Bunch of hypocrites and liars,” West said.

“You would say that. You’re a pirate.”

“Maybe. I’ll talk to Barry.”

* * *

Barry was sitting in West’s office when Ramon dropped Eddie off. He had his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

“Mister Ramon?” West asked.

“Are we parlaying?” Ramon asked. He took the other seat next to West, across from Barry. That left Eddie across from West, with Barry on his left.

“The Cadet wants to talk to Mister Allen,” West said.

“Interesting terms,” Ramon said. “Mister Allen?”

“I have nothing to say to him,” Barry said.

“Nothing?” Eddie asked. “You don’t think there’s anything we have to talk about?”

“You haven’t offered anything in return yet, Cadet,” Ramon said. “Don’t you know how parlay works?”

“No,” Eddie said. “I just wanted a private conversation with Barry.”

“Here’s my counter-offer,” Barry said. “You can talk to me now, during parlay, along with Captain West and Mister Ramon.”

“All right. Then I want an explanation.”

“An explanation of what?”

“You can start by how my husband who I buried is sitting there, alive and first mate of a crew of pirates!”

“Why do you care? You left me. You didn’t want to look at me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re angry you have to see me again, I know-”

“I’m angry you’re refusing to talk to me!”

Lightning flickered and sparked around the room.

“Barry,” West said. Barry took a deep breath.

“What is that?” Eddie asked.

“That is what Eobard did to me,” Barry said. “You know that. You didn’t want anything to do with me after the Grodd Project-”

“I don’t know what that is! I know you were working on something classified, I know one day you left looking nervous, you didn’t come home, then Uncle Eobard knocked on our door the next day and told me there had been an accident, that you’d been struck by lightning and you’d died.”

“But you were the one who told my parents. You were the one who organised the funeral. Dad said you told them you’d identified my body.”

“Because I had to go in and your body was lying in the morgue not breathing and your heart wasn’t beating. It was you, I know it was you. You were covered in burns but I know it was you. You had your ring on.” Eddie pulled a chain out from under his shirt. Both their rings hung on it. “It was you, you were dead in front of me.”

“You didn’t help them fake my death?”

“Why would I help someone do that, Barry? I just don’t understand. You had no pulse.”

“Your heart kept racing when you were in the coma,” Ramon said. “If their machines couldn’t detect it, no human would have been able to.”

“That is so messed up,” Barry said.

“The Grodd Project was what you were working on, wasn’t it?” Eddie asked.

“Both of us,” Ramon said. “Except we didn’t get the whole story. We were told we were in engine design.”

“We were trying to create something more efficient,” Barry said. “Something that would reach speeds no one had dreamt of yet, so we could explore further. One day Eobard slipped something into my notes, I think it was a mistake. It was an equation, a paper by Doctor Johnathon Chambers, but it wasn’t finished. It tapped into something Doctor Chambers called the Speed Force. Every particle in existence has speed. Speed creates time, energy, Doctor Chambers theorised that the Speed Force was the source of the energy that started the big bang. And he mentioned dark matter, which was one thing Mister Ramon had come across in his research into wormholes.”

“Something was up,” Ramon said. “We found out later Eiling and Eobard had discovered a certain particle classified as dark matter has the ability to alter DNA in specific circumstances. They’d discovered that with Grodd, a gorilla, who when exposed the dark matter developed telepathic abilities.”

“Uncle Eobard abhors animal testing,” Eddie said.

“Apparently not Cisco and Barry testing though,” Ramon said. “We were alone in my workspace. Everyone else was at lunch, and Barry had come to find me, to show me this equation, to see if I could help him understand how it was relevant. And then there was this explosion and I don’t remember anything after that, not till I woke up in a room I didn’t know, apparently on Mars, with Barry unconscious next to me. That’s how we met Doctor Snow, she worked with Grodd, then with us.”

“You’re trying to tell me my uncle lied and told me Barry was dead so he could- So he could-”

“I’m sorry, Ed,” Barry said. Lightning flickered around him. “Eobard’s not a good person. I can channel the Speed Force, and Cisco can create wormholes. That equation? It works, but it needs someone to channel the energy into the engine.”

“Which nearly killed you,” Ramon said.

“Which uses a lot of my energy. Just like creating wormholes uses a lot of Cisco’s. It doesn’t last long, and I pass out pretty much immediately. Honestly, I spent most of those few months unconscious. And then Wally West walked in.”

“West,” Eddie said.

“He was a cadet,” Barry said. “We’d met a couple of times. Engineer, he was more Cisco’s department, but he was very good at his job, and so he’d been asked to find a way to channel the Speed Force efficiently.”

“And Wally decided that was wrong,” Captain West said. “He’s my little brother. Wally called me, and I did some digging with Ms Park.”

“Planned something,” Eddie said.

“No, Wally called me because I’m a reporter,” West laughed. “Our dad was a detective and our step-mother was a lawyer, but we figured there’d been too much red tape to expose them that way, so Wally asked if there was something I could do. And I spoke with Doctor and Mrs Allen, who you know had thought Barry was dead, and I spoke with the Ramons, who thought Cisco was dead, and Linda and I did some more digging, met Jesse Wells whose father worked with dark matter and had got caught up in it all, and then Linda got a knock on her door, and we figured they’d cottoned on and wanted us to stop, but Wally decided to do something a little more drastic.”

“He broke you out,” Eddie said. Barry nodded. “And Doctor Snow?”

“Caught him,” Ramon said. “Which we thought was going to go wrong but turned out she was also not at all happy with what was going on and had actually also been exposed to dark matter while working with Grodd and was currently hiding that but couldn’t for much longer. So, basically, we thought we were about to go on the run while stuck on Mars but at least Wally had given Iris the heads up about what he was about to do.”

“It was a disaster,” West said. “Linda and I had to go rescue him, but Cisco’s brother wanted to come, and Barry’s parents, and luckily Dante knew Cisco’s old friend Kendra, who knew how to pilot a ship, and Cynthia, and my dad and Cecile refused to let us go alone, and Jesse came because her dad was at the base apparently and he ended up helping Wally, and then we had to run. And keep running. And mostly we’ve been trying to sabotage the project. We’ve clashed with your uncle a few times. Cisco lost his hands.”

“The theory was I create wormholes with my hands,” Ramon said. “And I’m an engineer who needs my hands, but Wally helped me make some robot hands and I don’t need my hands to create wormholes. Last time, though, last time they caught Wally.”

“That’s what you wanted,” Eddie said. “You wanted to trade me for your brother.”

“We didn’t think it would work,” West said. “Our original plan, that was just break into the base, rescue Wally, and blow it up.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Eddie said. “How many of you are there?”

“Fifteen?” Ramon said. “Um, Iris, Barry, Caitlin, Linda, Cindy, Kendra, Dante, Joe, Cecile, Joanie, Henry, Nora, Harry, Jesse, me, that’s fifteen.”

“But someone’s going to have to stay with Jenna,” West said. “Which will probably be Joanie?”

“So, fourteen, max,” Ramon said.

“All right,” Eddie said. “Is that offer still open, Captain?”

“Sure,” West said. “You actually want to help?”

“I was listening to what you were saying. And you’re going to need a lot of help.”

* * *

Barry went with Eddie back to his room.

“I did mean what I said,” he said. “About helping.”

“I know,” Barry said. “I need to apologise to you. I should… I thought you were involved. You were the one who told my parents I was dead, I didn’t have my ring, and it was Eobard, and I’d trusted him, and he was your uncle, and I should have known he’d lied about you, and I should have known you could never be involved in anything like this, and-”

“I get it,” Eddie said. “You were afraid, and confused, and had been betrayed. I can understand why you wouldn’t know who to trust. I’m sorry too. For doubting you when I found out you were alive. And I’m sorry I didn’t know about Eobard.”

“That’s not your fault. He tricked us both.”

“You know that plan won’t work, don’t you?”

“Yeah. But Wally saved my life. Iris and Cisco are my best friends. This crew, they’re my family, Eddie. I know I made you a promise, but I made them one too. We broke out once.”

“Because you had inside help. You don’t have that this time, and I can’t do that. Protocol means I can’t. I might be able to get into Eobard’s office, but…”

“I know. And he’s expecting us. Our one advantage is they don’t know Cisco can still create wormholes, but that can only be the escape plan.”

“Do you have enough to give to a reporter? If Captain West and Ms Park were reporters, they must still know some people.”

“I don’t know if we have enough. Maybe Iris could talk to Mason Bridge, her old mentor, but I don’t know. I could ask Snart.”

“Captain Cold.”

“He owes us one.”

“Captain Cold the actual pirate who the Navy have been chasing for literally years.”

“We helped out when his sister was in trouble. If Iris says it’s her little brother, he might be more open. I know the Mardons don’t get on with Joe because he did arrest them way back when, but again, if Iris says it’s her brother.”

“Anyone else you’ve met on your adventures?”

“Actually, yeah. You’ve heard of the Green Arrow and Black Canary, right?”

“Yes.”

“I could see if Linda could hail the _Sherwood_ , and maybe the _Waverider._ ”

“It’s still very risky.”

“I know. But it’s better than fourteen people.”

“We’ll think of a plan.” Eddie unclasped the chain from his neck and unthreaded Barry’s ring. He offered it. “It does belong to you. I’m not expecting you to wear it, or to pick up where we left off, or anything, but it is yours.”

“We’ve got a lot to talk about first, don’t we.”

“Yes,” Eddie said. “But I missed you and I still love you, so if you want to talk…”

“Yeah,” Barry said. He accepted the ring and twisted it around in his fingers. “I’d like that. And then we need to go blow up your uncle’s lab and save Wally.”

“We’ll do it. I don’t know how, but we will.”


End file.
